Why the district was expected to go to Pakistan

This wasn't a rumour — it was the operative legal position on 14 August. Under the 3 June Plan and the Indian Independence Act, a notional boundary governed the transfer of power until the Boundary Commission's award superseded it. That notional line assigned Muslim-majority districts of the Lahore and Rawalpindi divisions to West Punjab. Gurdaspur, in Lahore Division, had a bare Muslim majority in the 1941 census (a little over 50% district-wide), and three of its four tehsils were Muslim-majority: Batala at about 55%, Gurdaspur at 52%, Shakargarh at 51%, with only Pathankot clearly non-Muslim. So the district fell to Pakistan notionally, and the administrative machinery followed. The News

Hence the detail that anchors the whole episode: Pakistan sent Mushtaq Ahmed Cheema as Deputy Commissioner of Gurdaspur, and the Pakistan flag flew over the district for those days. The incumbency board in…

In one of the interviews, an eye-witness narrates horrific stories of how the Muslims were massacred near the railway station of this small village. He mentions Asmat, a beautiful Muslim girl who was murdered. Among the possibly hundreds who were killed, he specifically mentions about a Muslim clergy man and his wife who were murdered near the village lake. These stories highlight the scale of violence that was occurring in Punjab in almost every village, town and city.

Link to interview: https://youtu.be/_MxwxA4hBWs?si=X0G9eTE-guEKrRAT

Partition was one of the darkest periods in the Indian subcontinent’s history, however, it cannot be measured in terms of black and white. It was grayer for some, albeit black for most. It is vital to pull out individual orthodox experiences enmeshed in broader and generalised narrations of Partition. Through the fictional pieces discussed above reality was taken to its extreme levels, enabling us to see how Partition meant something else for every person.

In Thanda Gosht, two women symbolically subject Ishar Singh to physical, psychological, emotional, and sexual trauma as a parallel to everything women were subjected to in the war between the religions. On the other hand, Pinjar shows how women came in terms with their new found identities and even made good lives for themselves through love. Aur Kitne Tukde points to how women’s voices were subdued by patriarchal notions, but they still found space. There are…

In this article by David Lester, a search was undertaken to document cases of suicide during the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947. Cases were found for India and for women. The experience of those in Pakistan and of men was hard to locate. There is a need for further investigation to provide a fuller picture of suicide during this period.

Study: http://www.suicidology-online.com/pdf/SOL-2010-1-2-4.pdf